A moment of total complete isolation, completely void of even the sensation of having a body, the pulse of blood, the involuntary muscle contractions that you’re always feeling but tuning out. Everything. Gone.
Then there was an emerald flash and John existed again, the light spreading and dissolving into a white mist that suffused eternity, from which a older but still attractive woman materialized, wearing the distinctive robes that adorned the remains he’d just shuffled aside for treasure. She was standing in aloof hauteur, and when sure of his attention, gave a cold snort, then swung out her sleeve to expose a delicate hand held out flat, as if holding Yorrik’s skull and began to declaim… well, a whole bunch of gibberish as far as John was concerned. After a few moments she came to a triumphant finish and turned her palm down to gesture at John and spoke imperiously and gestured at the floor in front of John in what he could only assume was a demand that he kneel or bow down before her.
John tilted his head to the side, and then succinctly said “I have no idea what any of that was about, but I don’t see any reason to bow to dead woman.”
The woman looked shocked for a moment, and then seemed to deflate as she mouthed his words, shaking her head in confusion. The clouds of mist vanished and the until now unnoticed illumination that had been shining out of her melted away as she pouted and marched right up to John, muttered something under her breath and poked his forehead before he could even respond.
“Ow!” He cried out. “That hurt! Why’d you go and do that?’ He grumbled as a wave of dizziness ran over him and he massaged his forehead.
“Because I’d been planning that inheritance speech ever since I reached Magus and you ruined it with your total ignorance and lack of tact.” The woman snarled in an Oxford English accent. “And I wasted too much of this fragment’s power setting it up to spare you a little pain to make sure we can communicate. You were supposed to kneel in respect, declare me teacher, there would have been flower blossoms and dragons… it was marvelous…” Her eyes had grown misty and distant, then her eyes narrowed and she poked him again. In the exact same spot!
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‘Vicious’ John could not help but think, but before he could get a good head of steam on his anger, a piece of his mind caught up to what she had been saying.
“You want to leave me your legacy? I have potential to learn magic?” His explosion of eagerness managed to distract the shade from her disappointment for a moment.
“Uh… yess..” She seemed taken aback at this explosion of YOUTH! John had displayed. “The Inheritance plaque wouldn’t activate if you weren’t at least partially compatible with the meditation technique I developed, and everyone can learn….how do you know so little?”
“Not important!” John exclaimed as he fell into a ridiculously heavy kowtow. “Honor to teacher, she will be as my second mother and her path is my path til the end of my days!” John spouted nonsense that sounded straight out of Wuxia.com while chanting in his head, ‘Make with the magic, woman!’
The remnant, now looking decidedly uneasy about the young man bashing his head on the spiritual void, sighed and thought glumly to herself. “At least he’s eager. Which is odd, most men don’t want to cultivate the Pure Spirit branches. Oh well, at least whoever sent those assassins didn’t manage to shatter our legacy.’
She straightened her shoulders and declaimed to her new disciple, “I accept your piety, disciple John Campos, and pass on to you the lineage of the Pure Spirit School. Do not pass our knowledge to the unworthy, nor attempt to forge your own path til you have reached the rank of Magus. The inheritance disk will bond to you with a drop of blood, and all my knowledge will be yours. Make your teacher proud and should other remnants of the school survive, you will offer them aid. I, Magus Ningyum Arima, declare it!
And with one last triumphant smile, at John, the darkness shattered as he fell over on his ass, back in the study.
“Alright, I kind of regret missing her show now, that was pretty inspiring. But fuuuuck… my head STILL hurts… meh. Magic get.” John, having a sense of propriety despite his nonchalant attitude clasped his hands and bowed to his teacher’s remains, before stabbing his finger on a splinter and smearing some blood on the disk.
John watched in wonder as the blood ran into the grooves of the inheritance disk, then felt a strange shudder through his being, like he’d licked a nine volt battery with his brain, and then… then the knowledge was there! It was like he had put a memory beside his head, a memory distant but perfectly clear. And… and he couldn’t understand ANY of it.